Comments on First Break All the Rules

“First, Break All the Rules” by Marcus Buckingham & Curt Coffman is certainly a great book for all the managers.

For me, it is a relief. Having been applying some of those ideas in practices for quite a while and gathering the grand fruits as a result, I am still hesitating sometimes because those ideas are so alien to all the workplaces. With the evidences in this book, I am at least equipped with powerful enough weapon to defend the right things.

The twelve questions the authors proposed to measure the strength of a workplace fit well with my experience. Team’s high spirit is the absolutely accurate indicator of a successful effort. In the most striking failure I am aware of in my professional life up to today, in reflection all the questions probably get the lowest grade. I remember one incident. An employee was a leader of a project and worked in the customer’s site. The outcome of the project for this customer would decide if the company would die or survive. The employee’s notebook did not work properly and he asked to replace it with an available functioning one. The VP in charge of equipments happened to plan to have the notebook for himself. What the VP responded to the employee requirement email for the notebook, was, in essence, to threaten the employee. This particular employee never got a working notebook for that project, and as a fact of matter, he never got one before the company was destined to die.

This employee centric measurement makes more sense than other approaches of measurement. It is consistent with the teachings of all the great managers such as Jack Welch and Lou Gerstner: people are the most important asset for any corporate.

The central theme of the book: great managers know “People do not change that much; do not waste time trying to put in what was left out. Try to draw out what was left in; that is hard enough.” Based on this knowledge, great managers (1) when selecting someone, they select for talent … not simply experience, intelligence, or determination; (2)when setting expectations, they define the right outcomes … not the right steps; (3)when motivating someone, they focus on strengths … not on weakness; (4) when developing someone, they help him find the right fit … not simply the next rung on the ladder.

The authors’ discussions on the following topics are particularly interesting: (1) manager and leader (2) skills, knowledge and talents (3) customer satisfaction and accuracy, availability, partnership and advice (4) casting (5) manage by exception (6) create heroes in every role (7) tough love etc..

Generally, conventional wisdoms are facing challenges in all fields. In software development, there is RUP vs. Agile or XP; in manufacturing, there is thoughts of assembly line era vs. pull and lean production; in quality management, there is checked in vs. built in; in general management, there is by processes vs. by principles. In all those pairs, we can feel the consistence in old school thoughts and the new school thoughts. In all those cases of evolution or revolution from old to new, we can find that the acceleration of change and the speed of information dissemination play major role.